River Town: Two Years on the Yangtze (China trilogy #1) [B2097]

2006 PB in nice clean condition. Winner of the Kiriyama Book Prize. A New York Times Notable book. This memoir by a journalist who lived in a small city in China is "a vivid and touching tribute to a place and its people" (Kirkus Reviews, starred review). In the heart of China's Sichuan province, amid the terraced hills of the Yangtze River valley, lies the remote town of Fuling. Like many other small cities in this ever-evolving country, Fuling is heading down a new path of change and growth, which came into remarkably sharp focus when Peter Hessler arrived as a Peace Corps volunteer in 1996, marking the first time in more than half a century that the city had an American resident. Hessler taught English and American literature at the local college, but it was his students who taught him about the complex processes of understanding that take place when one is immersed in a radically different society. Poignant, thoughtful, funny, and enormously compelling, River Town is an unforgettable portrait of a city that is seeking to understand both what it was and what it someday will be. "This touching memoir of an American dropped into the center of China transcends the boundaries of the travel genre and will appeal to anyone wanting to learn more about the heart and soul of the Chinese people. Highly recommended." -Library Journal. "This is a colorful memoir from a Peace Corps volunteer who came away with more understanding of the Chinese than any foreign traveler has a right to expect." -Booklist.

From the many recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "Incredibly interesting"; "I came across this book while looking for more nonfiction about China, and it turned out to be exactly the kind of reading experience I didn't know I was looking for. It's a very authentic kind of nonfiction. It doesn't romanticize the simple life of Chinese peasants, nor is it critical for the sake of it. It's clear-eyed and sometimes even contradictory, as real life is when you actually live in a place and become involved. It's a great work of nonfiction, engaged and clear. More than anything, it felt insightful and deeply human."; "Liked this so much, I made space for a physical copy on my bookshelves! Enjoyed the writing very much - an outsider's perspective, but genuinely curious and never condescending"; "This is a precious book that offers an intimate look at China just before the dawn of the 21st century."